Now, CEO Thomas Ingenlath is again lowering expectations in an interview with Auto Express. He confirmed that it will start at around €40,000 (~$49,300) and he pushed production to 2020.

Ingenlath said:

“We are not saying it’s a Tesla killer, we are here to vividly compete with them in the market. We will launch Polestar 2 in the second half of 2019 and production will begin around the start of 2020”.

When unveiling Polestar 1, the company said that “Polestar 2 will start production later in 2019.”

Electrek’s Take

I feel like we have been played. They got a ton of publicity by claiming that the Polestar 2 would compete with the Model 3, which would be a welcome entry in the segment and push electrification further, but now a few months and comments later, it sounds nothing like a Model 3 competitor.

Fair enough, Tesla is currently selling the Model 3 starting at $49,000, but the plan is still for the vehicle to start at $35,000 with standard options launching later this year.

Assuming they achieve that, the Polestar 2 will be 40% more expensive than the Model 3 and it will be a low volume vehicle.

Polestar plans to work around the price tag with a subscription service – something similar to what its sister company Geely’s Lynk & Co is working on.

But it’s still unclear how it could be competitive with such a big price difference to start with.

In my opinion, if Polestar wants the vehicle to be successful, they should quickly stop comparing it to the Model 3 and give it an identity of its own.